This week marks the end of my first month of the 2020 research season on Hurricane Island, and what a great month it has been! Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis the research team has been lucky enough to be able to continue our projects on the island while taking necessary precautions to keep us all safe. Hurricane Island has a research aquaculture lease site which is largely dedicated to projects focused on providing more information to improve scallop aquaculture. Along with other growers and institutions, we’re involved in projects monitoring growth rates in different gear types and water quality on our farm and others. We’re also monitoring potential gear effects on the timing of spawning events and, as part of the Maine eDNA Project, working with the University of Maine and Bigelow Laboratories to develop how we might use eDNA (environmental DNA) as a tool for monitoring both wild and farmed scallop populations. More on that in future blogs.

As the scallops grow they become crowded in the aquaculture gear, reducing their feeding ability and increases their stress, resulting in slower growth. Thus, each spring we clean the cages holding the scallops and move some to new cages giving them room for appropriate social distancing. Allowing the scallops room to feed and move freely not only improves their general health, it also reduces the risk of direct transmission of any diseases present. In my previous position at Coonamessett Farm Foundation, I was part of the team which monitored the wild population of scallops on Georges Bank for signs of disease or stress. The disease we had identified in the scallops poses no risk for consumption but decrease the quality of the scallop, either making the scallop unmarketable or significantly reducing the price and taste. There is no evidence of this phenomenon at our site that we are aware of, but this year we will start careful monitoring of the scallop meat quality during our existing spawning data collection. I actually developed the method we’ll be using to evaluate meat quality (Pic #2) and look forward to using it on Hurricane!

While lower densities of scallops improves their growth in the gear, the high densities on farms overall makes them great potential spawning locations, with the possibility of enhancing wild populations of scallops. Early observations from a pilot study on the Hurricane Island site suggest that scallops grown in bottom cages on our site are spawning sooner than scallops grown in lantern nets. This difference might allow the juvenile scallops a longer growing season before the winter, potentially improving their chances of survival. These are some of the other questions we’re exploring in our research. Again, more on that later, so stay tuned for more information, results from our projects, and more about our aquaculture site. We would love to hear from you with any questions or words of wisdom!

I think the entire Hurricane Island staff would agree with the statement, “it’s been a crazy summer on the island”. Crazy busy, crazy productive, crazy stressful, but also crazy fun. It’s been an awesome ride, and as the crisp dry air blowing through my window this morning and whitecaps dancing across the sound reminded me, fall is here. While the season is far from over and there’s plenty more work to do, it’s a nice moment to look back on the summer and highlight a few things that the research team has accomplished. 

7128: scallops that are currently being grown in bottom cages and lantern nets out at our newly approved 3.2 acre lease site off of Gibbons point. 

22: spat bags that were sorted through, largely with the help of students! You can read more about our spat bags and baby scallops in Madison’s blog.

3142: baby scallops that were collected from the spat bags! In the next few weeks these baby scallops will be transferred out to the farm where they will continue to grow over the winter.

156: spat bags built with a Bowdoin College orientation group which will be deployed later this month around Hurricane Island to collect scallop spat for next year.

1: new research boat that provides a better work space, can haul lots of gear out to the farm, and goes fast! 

400: milliliters of 6 mm oyster seed that we are now growing in addition to our scallops and kelp.

180: scallops that have been dissected this summer as part of our work with gonadosomatic indices (GSI’s). GSI’s are a calculation of gonad mass as a proportion of the total body mass. As scallops become ready to spawn, the GSI increases. Since the beginning of July, we’ve dissected 20 scallops each week to see how the GSI’s have changed as we near scallop spawning season. You can read more about scallop GSI’s here or here.

3757.81: grams of scallop gonads that were weighed this summer for our GSI work. And still more to come!

13: phytoplankton samples that Madison and Hallie analyzed as part of the Department of Marine Resources phytoplankton monitoring program. This program identifies toxic phytoplankton species to help inform the closures of shellfish harvesting areas.

1: spontaneous snorkel with a sunfish in between dives. What else would you do when you’re on your surface interval and see a sunfish swim by? 

3: lost moorings found by our dive team in the mooring field. 

10: scallop dive transects completed, 6 still to go! Read more about our scallop dive transects in Flora’s blog.  

29.5: cumulative hours that our dive team spent underwater this summer.

5: incredible hard working women on the research team! In the 3 seasons I’ve worked for Hurricane the research team has always been an all women team, but this is the biggest team we’ve had ever had and it shows in all the work we accomplished this summer!

There is something about Hurricane Island that lingers in a visitor’s memory.  It’s an easy job to create a place that people are fascinated by; the island itself does all of the heavy lifting.  The staff borrows this power of place and incorporates it into curriculum. It is not an original idea but it is an incredibly effective one.  Placed-based educational theory is based on connecting students and curriculum to their local ecological, cultural, and historical contexts and emphasizes ‘real world’ learning experiences.  In short, our curriculum is hands-on and community-based (Sobel 2005).  

For the research team, our bridge to form these connections to our unique place on a Maine island is our spat, or young scallops.  Scallops are broadcast spawners, meaning that the eggs are fertilized in the water column.  Then, the new scallop spends its larval stage floating in the water column, their travel dictated by the currents in the spawning area (Hart and Chute 2004).  Successful scallops will settle down on hard substrates, like rocks. Some scallops, however, settle out into our spat bags, set out in the water column specifically to collect them.  

Spat bags are simple devices, a mesh bag filled with a hard substrate that is suitable for scallop settlement.  While in their larval stage, scallops can flow through the mesh bag, but once they settle on the inner substrate, they grow too large to escape.  Of course, scallops aren’t the only things settling in these bags.  

Our research team and program participants collaborate to sort through the spat bags, pulling out any small scallops that we find.  At this point in their life cycle, the scallops have the distinctive shape of the curved shell, with two ‘ears’ on one end, just miniaturized. I like to have an ongoing challenge of trying to find the smallest scallop in each spat bag.  We’ve found some that are only about a millimeter in height, which is the same as the thickness of a driver’s license! After we’ve sorted through the entire bag, we count each individual scallop that we found. This data helps us to know the best places to put our spat bags to collect scallops, and can be telling about the health of scallop populations in that area. 

At some point in this process, I like to pull out an older scallop that started as spat we collected and has been grown in our aquaculture gear.  The student’s work in sorting through spat bags is invaluable to our aquaculture farm and research because these are the next generation of scallops that we will study and grow.  Our spat is the link that encourages collaboration between our participants, the Hurricane Island community, the local economy, and the environment. And, small scallops are really cute.  

Hart D. R., and A. S. Chute. 2004. Sea Scallop, Placopecten magellanicus, Life History and Habitat Characteristics.

Sobel, D. 2005. Place-Based Education: Connecting Classrooms & Communities (2nd ed.). The Orion Society.

Here on Hurricane, we are always trying to find ways to be more sustainable. Often, this happens on land, but many don’t realize that we do this in the ocean as well. One of these projects is growing kelp, which might have benefits for water quality. 

As fossil fuels are burned, carbon dioxide gets released into the air. The ocean absorbs this carbon dioxide like a sponge, removing some from the air. While this gives us the benefit of less CO2 in the atmosphere, it also can cause problems for life in the ocean. When carbon dioxide from the air interacts with water, it forms carbonic acid, which leads to ocean acidification. This means that the pH of the ocean will decrease, which makes it difficult for shell-building creatures (such as scallops, clams, and periwinkles) to extract calcium from the water to build their shells. 

While shellfish aquaculture is expanding in the Gulf of Maine, ocean acidification is also getting worse. It is already a problem in pacific states where aquaculturists need to treat water to lower the pH before pumping it into their hatchery. 

One idea to help remediate ocean acidification that researchers are exploring is called phytoremediation. This means using photosynthesizing organisms (plants or algae) to absorb CO2 from the water. In Hurricane Sound, we can try using kelp—like trees, they absorb CO2 and produce oxygen. Researchers at Bigelow Labs and Island Institute have already found that kelp can affect the amount of CO2 dissolved in the water in the winter when it is growing the fastest. However, shellfish do most of their growth in the summer. Will kelp still have these positive effects when it is warm growing slowly?

To test this, I have been taking daily water samples to test the pH and dissolved oxygen content of seawater around Hurricane Island to see if kelp has any effect on the chemistry of the ocean. I am testing our kelp aquaculture lines, a wild kelp bed off of the dock, and a bed of Ascophyllum nodosum (knotted wrack) in Valley Cove. Stay tuned for the results!

It’s hard to believe we’ve already been out on Hurricane Island for over a month! As part of the seasonal summer staff, I arrived on the island on June 9th. After a week of orientation, we dove right into our respective roles. I am part of the research team, and I get to spend my time working with scallops and planning SCUBA dives around the island. 

 This year, we are trying to implement a new research project that involves diving around the island and surrounding area and looking for- you guessed it- scallops! I’ve picked some sites out for us to dive, and we started by doing a practice dive out in the mooring field. Madison, Phoebe, and I laid out a 50-meter transect tape and counted all the scallops we could find within a meter on either side of the tape. 

 Let me tell you, 50 meters is a long way underwater and scallops are very hard to see! Their shells are covered with brown fibrous material consisting of bryozoans, seaweeds, barnacles, flat clams, and other fouling organisms. They end up looking exactly like the ocean floor. I ended up watching for the movement of the shell closing, because when the scallop sees me it shuts its shell in alarm! As the shell closes, a little puff of seafloor muck rises up, and that tells me there is a scallop hidden. Some of the scallops I found were almost as big as my face! Since this area was just dragged for scallops this past winter, it seems that some have escaped the fishing unscathed!

 As Madison and I counted scallops, Phoebe followed along behind and took pictures with the GoPro. Figuring out the best way to take pictures is going to take some time. I’m thinking I’ll practice taking pictures on land before we go in the water next time.

 This upcoming week we will be conducting another two dives, this time off the boat up by the aquaculture site to the north end of the island and in Valley Cove. Wish us luck and scallops!

This meeting focused on revising our intertidal monitoring protocol that member stations implemented in the summer or fall of 2017. We also delved into data management and other considerations for making our data accessible for other researchers, educational purposes and to the public. Our overarching goal for joint monitoring is to be able to track changes in the Gulf of Maine across the spatial extent of our coastal stations which range from the Isles of Shoals on the border between New Hampshire and Maine to Bon Portage Island in Canada. We are in the midst of trying to figure out how to work together to collect, manage and analyze data.

In 2016, we deployed temperature loggers in the intertidal and then in the summer and fall of 2017, we set permanent transect sites and collected data about the intertidal community, including presence or absence and abundance. On Thursday, we discussed observations from this year’s fieldwork as well as revisions to the protocol and ideas for training individuals in identifying species and implementing the methods. Lack of man or woman-power was a major issue many of our stations faced. The transects just take time and people. We brainstormed creative ways to engage communities, students, and others in the implementation of our protocol. Schoodic Institute modified their training and data sheet for citizen scientists to head into the field and collect the data.

Another potential opportunity for interesting research is to connect our Kelp Ecosystem Ecology Network (KEEN) subtidal monitoring to our NeCSA intertidal monitoring (Check out our blog post here!). The Hurricane research team already implements the KEEN protocol at three sites: Pemaquid Point in partnership with Marissa McMahan at Manomet, Hurricane Island and Schoodic Point. The latter two sites are already NeCSA monitoring sites. By linking our subtidal with our intertidal sites, we may be able to track shifts in community composition with rising sea levels or other changes in the environment. We haven’t quite figured out how to do this yet, but we’re hoping to work on it and get more NeCSA stations involved in KEEN monitoring.

The meeting was a success and as always, it was fun to see everyone and hear how their field seasons went. We’re planning to meet again in March at Bigelow so stay tuned!

This year is the second year that Hurricane Island has been part of the Kelp Ecosystem Ecology Network (KEEN). KEEN is a global network of scientists who are assessing the impacts of global change on kelp forests. Kelp forests are an important ecosystem because they provide a complex habitat that supports a high diversity of marine organisms. Through KEEN, scientists across the world are using a standardized SCUBA sampling protocol to observe kelp forests over time and understand how resistant they are with rapidly changing oceanic conditions.

As a member of KEEN, we conduct five different protocols along four transects at each site we survey. Each protocol focuses on a different part of the ecosystem to determine abundance and percent cover of common invertebrates, algae and fish, as well as the size distribution and biomass of kelp. Last year, we surveyed one site on the north end of Hurricane Island. This year, our involvement in KEEN grew, as we added a second site on Schoodic Peninsula. Schoodic Peninsula is located further down east in Maine, and we conducted our surveys in the part of the peninsula that is Acadia National Park. In addition to the two sites we managed, we helped Northeastern University complete surveys at their site on Pemaquid Point. 

One exciting part about surveying multiple sites for KEEN is being able to see the changes in species distribution and ecosystem characteristics over a small distance. At Schoodic, we saw much more coralline algae compared to what is present both at Hurricane and Pemaquid. Another species of interest was Dasysiphonia japonica, an invasive filamentous red algae that originates from Japan. Dasysiphonia japonica has recently been seen in large quantities along much of the Maine coast and has been taking over areas previously dominated by kelp ecosystems. During our surveys at both Pemaquid Point and on Hurricane Island, Dasysiphonia japonica was one of the most commonly spotted species, but at Schoodic, we did not see any Dasysiphonia japonica, a sign possibly indicating that the algae has not yet invaded further down east the Maine coast.

Personally, my favorite site to dive was at Schoodic Peninsula because I had never been to Schoodic before and it has long been on my list of places to visit in Maine. Although where we were diving in Schoodic is also part of Acadia National Park, it could not have felt more different than the part of Acadia located on Mount Desert Island. Schoodic is more remote with much less visitor traffic. The diving was also unique, dominated by a substrate of pink granite boulders and ledges covered in coralline algae

Although the protocols are the same at each site, each site felt new and exciting because we worked with different divers and saw a variety of unique species. Between all three sites, the Hurricane Island dive team completed 12 transects for KEEN monitoring in 10 different dives along the coast of Maine!

Just over a month ago, Hurricane was fortunate enough to host the Alca I. and its amazing crew of scientists as they made their way across the Gulf of Maine conducting research on dramatic changes occurring in our oceans. The Alca I. is a three-masted motor schooner that was specifically built for oceanographic expeditions by Dr. Walter Adey, a research scientist with the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.  After construction was finished 2003, the Alca I. has been traveling across the North Atlantic on a variety of expeditions focused on distribution of a variety of seaweeds. The current expedition is being run in conjunction with Drs. Thew Suskiewicz and Doug Rasher, who are continuing the research that Dr. Adey started over 50 years ago.

The vessel had a rotating crew and we were excited to have Dr. Suskiewicz come ashore to give a presentation to our students while the vessel was moored at Hurricane.  The Advanced Marine Biology students learned about the changing nature of the Gulf of Maine, particularly related to the changing seaweed communities due to successive overharvesting of a variety of marine species (e.g., large finfish, urchins).  It was amazing to hear how few large urchins they were able to find on their current expedition in the lower subtidal zones compared to the last expedition that saw almost nothing but urchin barrens (example video from Southern California).

You can learn more about about their work and help support the current expedition by visiting their gofundme site.

What went in last fall as the size of my fingertip now fills the palm of my hand. With an average growth rate of 0.07mm per day, our baby scallops spent the past year slowly filling up the bottom cages they were placed in. The added size means, just like for my brother and I growing up, that more personal space is needed. We have been keeping our density around 30% and the scallops are now spread throughout 4 bottom cages and 2 lantern nets. We even had a student from Georgetown join our research team for the day and help us with the time-consuming task of taking monthly growth measurements and transferring them to new, more spacious cages. The help was so appreciated! Everyone should come out and take a look for themselves! They seem to be at their peak teenage phase and very active. There is nothing like the joy on someone’s face as they watch a scallop swim for the first time or hold it in their hand while it utilizes its powerful adductor muscle to clap rapidly.

Our charismatic tiny-fauna will undergo monthly cleanings of the mesh and cage structures, as algae and barnacles grow prolifically during the warmer months. We are really starting to feel like farmers! Especially taking into consideration all the new spat we’ve collected this year, our sea farm and the gear required to make it operational are growing in step with the scallops. Our goal is to ear hang them in the fall once they’ve grown a little larger! Stay tuned.

This weekend even marked an exciting field trip for a lucky handful of little scallops. Hurricane Island hosted a booth at the Chebeague Aquaculture Festival, giving visitors a chance to look a farmed scallop in the eyes and learn about our goals of research and education through on-island aquaculture. We were joined by an excellent array of speakers, growers, cooks, entrepreneurs, and enthusiastic members of the public! And while those coast-traversing scallops are safely back in their cages now, I think they may miss the taste of warm, growth-conducive water they were briefly given.

The word ecology comes from the Greek words oikos meaning “the family household” and logy meaning “study of.” This past week High School Island Ecology (HSIE) got to explore the world of freshwater macroinvertebrates.

Our ambitious high school students studied the households of our freshwater macroinvebrate communities by sampling in both the Ice Pond and one of the old foundation ponds and compared what they found in each.

Invertebrates are extremely important for all ecosystems and make up 96% of animal species. The freshwater macroinvertebrates, defined as spineless animals that can be seen with the naked eye, on Hurricane are responsible for the breakdown and cycling of nutrients within their ponds similarly to the ways in which earthworms allow for the cycling of nutrients in soil. The species we were studying feed on autochthonous detritus, decaying organic matter that has come from flowering plants, mosses, or algae and is typically high in its cellulous content.

Many freshwater invertebrates act as indicator species of habitat health allowing for the process of biomonitoring. Dragonfly nymphs, for example are very sensitive to pollutants and their presence in a freshwater system indicates that that body of water is relatively clean and free of contaminates. Don’t let the adult dragonfly’s beauty bewitch you; they are fearsome predators who, in their larval form, look like the aliens of horror movie fame. Dragonfly larvae have extendable jaws called labium that they thrust out towards their prey. Equipped with sharp bristles and pincers, once a prey item is in the grasp of a dragonfly nymph it has little hope. These nymphs have even been known to hunt and capture freshwater fish 10x larger than they are. Upon careful study students noted that the most prevalent family of dragonfly in the Ice Pond were the Libellulidae or Skimmer dragonflies. One student even remarked that the nymphs he was finding appeared to be the inspiration behind Predator, the 1987 science fiction action horror film. Who says science can’t be cool?!  

Closely related to their marine bivalve cousins, the scallops, the freshwater environments on Hurricane are rife with Sphaeriidae otherwise known as fingernail or pea clams. The HSIE students pulled dozens of these tiny bivalves up in their nets from the soft substrate of the ice pond. When sorting through the muck in our nets the fingernail clams looked like little pearls that had burrowed into the surrounding leaf litter. Fingernail clams have a lifespan of 1-3 years but can reach maturity as rapidly as at one month old. One of the reason fingernail clams are so prevalent in freshwater environments is that they can burrow up to 25 cm into soft sediment and therefore are able to avoid desiccation (drying out) for several months at a time.

The Humpless Case Maker Caddisflies (Brachycentridae) construct four sided tapering cases made of thinly stacked spruce needles gathered from the environment around them and cemented together with their own spit. These freshwater engineers use whatever is in the environment around them to construct a protective shell and feed by clinging to decaying logs in their environment and filtering small particles of organic matter from the surrounding water. Intriguingly we found more caddisfly larvae in the foundation pond than we did in the Ice Pond. Determining what factors lead to this difference in distribution could be a potentially fruitful area for inquiry by future program participants!  

HSIE returned to the Ice Pond later in the week for the raft challenge and as students constructed and tested their rafts they discussed the creatures they now knew lived beneath its murky waters. Their splashes and kicks in the pond, as they moved their rafts across, allowed these young ecologists to become part of the Ice Pond ecosystem by aerating the water, which in turn increased its dissolved oxygen content allowing the pond to hopefully support a greater diversity and abundance of macroinvertebrates. 

This spring, before returning to Hurricane, I spent 3 months on a much larger island- Madagascar, that is- as an Aquaculture Intern with Reef Doctor, an organization working on many fronts to address extreme poverty and rapidly dwindling fisheries in villages along the southwestern coast of the African country. The Vezo, whose name means “people of the sea”, rely almost entirely on fishing everything from octopus to parrotfish to sea turtles to make a living and provide food for their household. But as population increases, extra pressure on an already overfished reef system risks leaving people without a source of income. Boats already come in empty, and many have resorted to dragging mosquito nets along the beach, which catch even the smallest juvenile fish. While damage to the ecosystem and marine populations are grim, you cannot simply tell people to stop fishing. Instead, Reef Doctor has set up community run seaweed and sea cucumber aquaculture farms in villages all around the Bay to provide an alternative livelihood that is sustainable both for the ocean and the people depending on it. 

A globally prevalent seaweed for carrageenan extraction, Kappaphycus alvarezii, is grown on longlines that create habitat for small fish and squid. We rowed out to the farms and assisted with almost daily cleaning of sediment build up that would inhibit growth and checked for damaging invasive epiphytic algae. Ranging from bright green to brown while growing, it dries into a beautiful purple color and is bagged and sold by the kilo to a local processor. The sea cucumbers, called “sand fish”, are farmed in near shore plastic mesh pens. It takes about a year to raise them to market size at which time they are salted and shipped to Asian buyers. Families participating in the sea cucumber program have seen an average increase of 2.53 USD/day of income. I got to help build and stock pens for 20 new farmers since the program has shown so much success. The great thing about sea cucumbers is, just like shellfish, they broadcast spawn, meaning they release their eggs into the ocean and can actually contribute to wild population numbers. I was very impressed with how well both forms of aquaculture were integrated into the local villages and the benefits already accrued after just 3 years of operating!

For me, the parallels to aquaculture in Maine and the role it serves were evident. While sturdy mooring buoys replace the recycled plastic water bottles of Mada, seaweed farming has been bringing a viable source of alternative income to Maine’s fishermen who already have much of the gear and on-the-water knowledge needed to be successful. While waters warm in the Gulf of Maine and threaten lobster catches, coastal communities here need something they can turn to or fall back on in case the wild-caught fishery they work in crashes. Right now, both Maine and Madagascar farms are being driven by community members who are excited about the potential it holds and recognize the need for a livelihood that helps to improve the ecosystem rather than only extract from it. And in both communities, there is an important role for researchers to play in carrying out experiments with the goal of optimizing growth under local conditions and training farmers on the best methods to utilize for success. While never a silver bullet, my time in Madagascar taught me that aquaculture can and actively is addressing environmental and social problems in communities all across the globe.

As an Environmental Studies major at Colby College, my recent alma matter, seniors are not required to complete a honors thesis in order to graduate. Up until the summer before my senior year, I had no intention of voluntarily undertaking such a daunting task - but that was before I spent a summer on Hurricane Island as the Research Intern working on the Maine Midcoast Collaborative Scallop Project. Throughout last summer, I become involved in all aspects of the research project including data collection, processing, and educating students and visitors about our research. With Cait’s encouragement, and the help of my advisor at Colby, I decided to tackle a small piece of this project as my senior honors thesis.           

My thesis focused specifically on Placopecten magellanicus “sea scallop” larval dynamics inside and outside the Lower Muscle Ridge closure area. Through my research, I aimed to answer the questions: has larval abundance changed over the three-year closure period and does it vary inside the closure area as compared to adjacent fished areas? The data I used to answer these questions came directly from the spat bags we deploy in the Muscle Ridge area as a metric to gauge larval abundance. Much of my summer last year was spent counting and measuring scallops from the spat bags, and it was exciting to take the next step in the research process by analyzing the data I had spent so much time collecting. 

Completing my thesis was not easy work, and there were definitely times of frustration, but those were outweighed by the numerous positive moments and opportunities that came as a result of my thesis. As part of my work to understand current patterns in the Muscle Ridge Channel to determine likely directions of larval transport I interviewed scallop and lobster fishers from the Midcoast area about their perceptions of prevailing current patterns. Talking to the fishers and hearing their perspectives added a separate aspect to my project and exposed me to the world of social science research.

In April, I had the opportunity to present at the International Pectinid Workshop. This is an annual, international conference on all things regarding scallops. This year, it happened to take place in Portland, Maine, which made it easy for me to attend and present. IPW was the first scientific conference I had attended, and it was an incredible experience to hear from scientists across the world present their research on topics including fishery closures, gear modifications, management plans, scallop aquaculture, diseases and much more. Being at the conference also allowed me to interact and talk with senior researchers and graduate students which gave me a window into the many opportunities that are available should my interests remain within the scallop world.

While the thesis experience as a whole was filled with challenges and rewards, the most fulfilling part of my thesis, (besides printing the final draft!) was presenting my work at the Colby Liberal Arts Symposium (CLAS), an annual event at the end of the spring semester when classes are cancelled and the entire day is dedicated to the research students from all years, majors, and disciplines have conducted during the past year. During the session devoted to Environmental Studies thesis presentations, I was able to talk about my work in front of peers, professors, roommates, friends, and family. This presentation allowed me to share my academic work outside of the research setting and communicate my research to friends who previously, only thought about scallops under the category of delicious seafood. CLAS is always a wonderful day filled with presentations, poster sessions, speech contests, music performances and art shows, and it was extremely rewarding to present my thesis and share my work with the greater Colby community.

Returning to Hurricane Island this summer as the Research Assistant has allowed me to continue working on the both the Midcoast Maine Collaborative Scallop Project as well as adding another year of data to my analysis. I’m excited to be back for a second summer to continue this work, be a part of the Hurricane community and enjoy all the benefits that stem from living on a beautiful island in Penobscot Bay!

As waters begin to warm (although it may not feel that way yet!) and nutrients become more abundant, phytoplankton are beginning to bloom off our Maine shores. Seen under the microscope, these tiny algae that make up the base of the ocean food chain form a beautiful kaleidoscope of varied shapes. Some take on the appearance of beaded necklaces or tiny leaves, while others call food to mind with their turnip or pizza slice like forms. However, a number of species can produce toxins that, when consumed by humans eating filter-feeding shellfish, prove quite harmful. “Red tide” as it is commonly called when concentrations are high enough to change the surface water color, builds up in the mussels or clams that feed on it for several weeks. If eaten by someone, the built-up toxin can cause paralytic, diuretic, or amnesic shellfish poisoning (PSP, DSP, or ASP), depending on the phytoplankton species present.

The Department of Marine Resources (DMR) regularly tests sites up and down the coast to make sure that an area with a harmful algal bloom will be closed to shellfish harvesting in time to minimize health risks. They rely on volunteer monitoring efforts to make this a success, and we got certified as official phyto-samplers last week. Out on Hurricane, we are sampling weekly at our aquaculture site to report back to DMRs public health branch on the presence of any of these potentially harmful species. If the water is consistently clear of harmful algal blooms over time, we may eventually be able to consume the scallops that we grow here.

Our first sample this week had plenty to look at and I found it so rewarding and fun to learn the species identification. There was a surprising amount of Pseudo-nitzschia which can lead to ASP, although the toxin is not always produced. That will be something to keep an eye on and we sent a report in to DMR. Monitoring coastal waters for changes in phytoplankton populations is critical for protecting those of us who enjoy eating shellfish, the people who grow or harvest them, and to stay vigilant for new species that are moving northward due to climate change.

The Collaborative Scallop Project

In July and August, we conducted our SCUBA dive surveys on Muscle Ridge and Ocean Point. Our goals were to document juvenile and adult densities and to collect individual scallops for tissue samples for genetics and the shells for a growth rate analysis. For the first time ever, we completed our dive days by the end of August!! In past years, we’ve had to do dive surveys through the fall and even as late as November 29th, so this was a very welcomed change and speaks to the field team we had in place. In mid-September, three technicians from Dr. Stokesbury’s lab at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science & Technology traveled to Maine to do three days of drop camera work. They were able to take photographs at all of the stations that were sampled last year and Bailey learned how to work the winch on the scallop boat, F/V Julianne. On September 22, we deployed our Muscle Ridge spat bags, these in addition to four lines on Ocean Point at the end of August. Looking forward to more spat in 2017!

The drop camera surveys were supported with funding from the Patagonia Retail Store in Freeport. The staff from the store also got to come to Hurricane Island over two days this Summer to volunteer their time to help with the project. During that time, we were able to process a number of the shell samples we’ve collected over the years as well as work through some of our spat bags from 2015. They were an incredible help and I think enjoyed their time on the island. We were so thankful for that funding opportunity and wehope they’ll come back next year!

Bailey, Jessie and I engaged 90 students participating in nine different Hurricane Island education programs in the Scallop Project, either through processing shell samples or spat bags. In addition, we hosted 80 people in partnership with the Vinalhaven Land Trust for a morning on Hurricane where they learned about the Scallop Project as well as other initiatives. These were great ways to get the word out about our project!

Currently, I am working on analyzing data from the past four years and reviewing papers that talk about the effect of closed areas on target species. We hope to understand what the effect of the closure has been to date and whether or not we should plan to continue monitoring both the Muscle Ridge and Ocean Point closed areas. Jessie decided to take on a portion of the analysis as an independent project and possibly an honors thesis this year at Colby. Specifically, she is working on analyzing data from our spat bags.

The Stokesbury crew is busy analyzing data from the drop camera surveys and Sarah Kingston, a post doctoral fellow at Bowdoin College, has agreed to start the initial genetic analysis. Stay tuned for a summary of results as they become available!

Aquaculture

We continue to move forward with developing an aquaculture operation on Hurricane Island. We envision aquaculture as an opportunity to integrate our education programs with our research efforts. We renewed our Limited Purpose Aquaculture (LPA) for growing sugar kelp. Bailey and Jenn, our Director of Education, worked with students from Northport Middle School to deploy seed lines that the students had grown in their classroom at the site on Hurricane in October. We also put juvenile scallops collected in our spat bags from Muscle Ridge into two bottom cages where we hope they’ll survive the winter. Bailey and I tagged 100 individual scallops to track their growth throughout the year.

To further support our aquaculture operation, we participate in water quality and phytoplankton monitoring in partnership with the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR). We collect a water sample and a phytoplankton sample on a bi-weekly basis from May through November and send our samples to the DMR lab in Boothbay Harbor. The water quality program, which is a state-wide effort through DMR, monitors for E. coli and the phytoplankton program monitors for biotoxins that can cause Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning and other public health-related problems. Our hope is that through this monitoring, we will be able to reclassify the waters around Hurricane to allow us to consume the species we grow through aquaculture. We will likely not have an issue with E. coli; however, harmful algal blooms could be an issue in the summer months and so, we may have to abide by seasonal closures.

Archaeology

We continue to move forward with documenting the quarry era on Hurricane through archaeology. Fred Koerber, our lead archaeologist and career history educator in the Brunswick school system, gave a talk on Vinalhaven in July. Forty-four people attended to hear a summary of findings-to-date derived from a field week in 2015 and independent research at historical societies and libraries. The research team supported a second field week in early August 2016. We focused our efforts on a site at the north end of Hurricane near Gibbons Point. Fred was interested in determining if the site was the same time period as the quarry town or if it had been an earlier settlement. We spent four days digging and uncovered an incredible number of artifacts including some pieces that point to an earlier settlement, but Fred is planning to spend some time this winter analyzing the artifacts we found and continuing his research before making a determination. Our field week culminated in a second visit to Hurricane in partnership Vinalhaven Land Trust. Sixty-five people came by boat to learn more about the history of the island and our archaeological work specifically. This winter, we are planning to make a long-term strategy for preserving and documenting the island’s history.

The Northeastern Coastal Stations Alliance (NeCSA)

We are continuing efforts to coordinate environmental monitoring with other field stations in the Gulf of Maine.  In March 2016, we had our final in-person meeting, which involved field station directors, researchers and others invested in understanding change in the Gulf of Maine. Laura Sewall, from Bates College, and I completed a strategic plan, outlining network actions to move our work forward over the next ten years. Hannah Webber, from Schoodic Institute, and Hurricane Island received a small grant from Maine Sea Grant to implement a pilot project where multiple stations would deploy and retrieve the same data logger and compare the data across our locations. In June, nine stations deployed a HOBO TidBit v2 Data Logger in the intertidal zone to monitor nearshore water temperature. Bailey, our research assistant, deployed the Hurricane logger in the intertidal zone on the south end of the island at Two Bush near the location of Bowdoin’s long-term intertidal transects. In August, we collected the logger, downloaded the data and then redeployed the logger for the winter. It’s a small step in learning how our stations can work together to monitor nearshore change in the Gulf of Maine. Going forward, we plan to develop an intertidal protocol to document the biological community at each of our stations so we can couple the biological data with the abiotic logger data. 

The Kelp Ecosystems Ecology Network

We have joined a global network that monitors kelp beds around the world. Kelp beds provide important habitat for a number of species and are susceptible to climate change. A standardized monitoring protocol is used at all sites where this work takes place and the Northeast chapter of the Kelp Ecosystems Ecology Network (KEEN) is housed at Northeastern University. We joined a dive team from Northeastern at the Pemaquid Lighthouse for training on the protocols used to collect data for KEEN. Bailey and Jessie joined Marissa McMahan, a Northeastern PhD student to finish the transects at Pemaquid. We then implemented the same protocol on the north and western side of Hurricane. As part of this work, we deployed two HOBO TidBit v2 loggers to track water temperature throughout the year. Hurricane represents the northernmost site included in the Kelp Ecosystems Ecology Network in the Northeastern U.S.

It was definitely a busy season and now we are transitioning to the winter months, which will include synthesizing data and making plans for next year.  Stay tuned for updates throughout the coming months as we analyze and summarize findings.

I was recently given a grim yet beautiful book of Hurricane Island poetry written back in the early 1900’s by Harold Vinal. In it he writes, “The granite cannot speak; it has no voice; and all is silence save for the great sea. Ah, my fastidious sire, if it could!” Yes, if only it could. The granite may not be able to speak, but the artifacts embedded around it certainly can if one pays close enough attention. That was the 5-day task set before the research team during our 2016 Archaeology week; allowing historic remains to speak their stories using archaeology as our coercer. Along with Madelaine, an archaeology student from Washington University, we were guided by Fred Koerber, an archaeologist by passion who has put an impressive amount of work into researching the details of Hurricane Island history and who led our first archaeology program last summer.

Arriving at an overgrown granite foundation and water well on the North End of the island I had previously paid little attention to, we learned that this site only appears in the records a handful of times and is thought to have pre-dated the quarry era. Several flowering trees sit adjacent to a field and just around the corner sit the only 2 headstones found on the island. Questions arose immediately and we brainstormed as a team to determine where we thought best to dig in order to answer them. Was there agricultural activity? Who lived here and when? What can be learned about their lifestyle? The archaeological process began.

Digging both in and outside the stone foundation, a plethora of artifacts made themselves known almost immediately below the surface. Bags worth of glass, metal, coal, and animal bones were washed and inventoried from 20 cm sections of dirt. Given the islands history of use with Outward Bound, it is likely that some of the material was deposited during their time on Hurricane, which made the interpretation more difficult than usual. However, some of the artifacts were unmistakably 19th century; buttons, earthenware pottery shards, redware pottery that had shell pieces molded into its fabric, and bricks from the old building. Possibly more interesting were the artifacts we didn’t come across with our trowels. There were no pieces of the ubiquitous smoking pipe found at dig sites elsewhere on the island. Also, nothing gave any indication that women were present here, perhaps indicating it was not a place of domestic activity.

Pouring over the unearthed artifacts, we pulled together our best interpretations as well as a whole slew of questions. The week culminated with 60 visitors from the Vinalhaven Land Trust island hopping, as they did back in the days of the granite town for theater performances and the like, to see the work we had done. Visitors received a historic tour of the south end and then hiked over to our dig site to see for themselves what was found and what new information our work can tell us about the purpose of this old foundation. It’s exciting to leave the site with more questions than answers and we hope to continue excavating archaeological units this fall. Huge thanks go to Fred for sharing his knowledge, time, and storytelling skills with us. Seeing firsthand some of the secrets left beneath the soil of this island, I have a whole new appreciation for the people who walked these granite shores before us.

Our little guys are growing up! With many of the baby scallops from our spat bags now over 2 cm in size, it’s time for them to begin the next phase of scallop aquaculture. We visited the Darling Marine Center to learn from Maine Sea Grant’s Dana Morse about what that can look like. And what better way to do so than immerse yourself in the process and get muddy!

Ear-hanging is one method that can be used to grow scallops once they are about 2 inches across. A hole is drilled in the “ear” or wing of the shell, and gets threaded onto a rope that will be suspended in the water column. The technique comes from Japanese scallop farms, where operations are large scale and far more mechanized, as in this video. While it is a labor intensive process, researchers have been finding improved growth rates using the ear hanging method because water flow and space are unrestricted. Out on Hurricane, we will be using bottom cages for this coming year of growth, but may consider ear-hanging in the future.

Joined by others interested in pursuing scallop aquaculture, we boated around the corner to where Danas’ scallops have been growing in bottom cages, the same kind used for oysters. Upon hauling the cages up, it’s immediately clear how much fouling can occur. The bags were covered in tunicates, but they are easy to scrape off if you don’t mind the squishiness. We took out the larger scallops and brought them into the lab to be processed. The goal of the afternoon was to set up 4 lines of 60 scallops to deploy, each testing a different location of the drill hole. One ear is slightly larger than the other providing more stability for the hole while the other has a spot where drilling does not damage the shellfish’s mantle tissue. Dana will go back in 6 months to see if one method held up better than the others, and remeasure each individual to determine any growth rate differences. Ear-hanging is an exciting possibility for Maine waters. Dana is definitely leading the charge and it was awesome to see how doable it would be for Hurricane Island to carry out the technique ourselves next year!

On Saturday August 13th we finished our last scallop dive day on Muscle Ridge! (If you would like to learn more about what happens on our scallop dives you can read my previous blog post, First Scallop Dive Day!) Finishing our dives is a little bittersweet because dive days have been a blast this year, although I definitely feel a sense of accomplishment for all the work we have done this summer.  All in all, we lucked out with great dive conditions and are extremely excited to have finished our Muscle Ridge dive days before late October when temperatures are much cooler. First, I would like to send a huge thank you to the wonderful fishermen Tad, Dan, and Jim who so graciously have taken us out on their boats and work as amazing dive tenders while we are underwater.

Even though we have not yet gone through our data to start the analysis from this season, we have noticed that there are more juvenile scallops this year than in past years.  When comparing our survey results to the drop camera results from previous years, we have found that our dive surveys have been less successful at capturing the juvenile population.  This could be due to the difficulty of spotting small scallops in poor visibility conditions, or because in past years that size class has not been present at our sites.  Finding juvenile scallops at a number of our sites this season has been a positive sign because it suggests that we were not simply missing them because of visibility.

Thinking back to the first day we dove for the scallop project in early July, I can’t believe that time has gone by so fast.  This was my first experience with research diving and it is hard to believe that at one point I was unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the methodology and protocols. Now, completing the scallop transects feel like any other dive.  I have found that the biggest difference with research diving is that you go underwater with a purpose, not simply to “see what you can see”.  However, this does not mean that our scallop dives have not been fun or that we did not see interesting organisms.  I could start a long list, but some of my favorite things I saw were two crabs mating, and some stocked jellyfish.  Scallop dive days were a huge focus for this summer—realizing that we finished our last transect is the first of many signals that unfortunately, summer is starting to wrap-up very quickly.

In addition to diving for the scallop project, Bailey and I also had the unique opportunity to dive with the Rozalia Project’s ROV.  The Rozalia Project is a wonderful group whose mission is to “clean and protect our ocean”.  They visited Hurricane Island in late July to help teach two of our programs about their mission. Between cleaning up marine debris and teaching our highschoolers’, they helped us locate a lost mooring in our harbor using their ROV, Hector the Collector.  From the deck of the boat Hector was maneuvered onto the seafloor, with the help of his sonar sensors and a small screen aboard the boat, we were able to find the mooring block without too much trouble.  The real fun began when Bailey and I dove down to Hector in order to attach the mooring line back onto the block.  I had never dove with an ROV before—it was fun to have something else with us while we were underwater.  Hector even stayed with us on our safety stop to keep us company and take some fun photos! Diving with Hector was a new experience for me and it was also satisfying to put our dive skills to use in order to help find the lost mooring.

One new addition to Hurricane Island this summer is the establishment of a Kelp Ecosystem Ecology Network site (KEEN).  KEEN is a global network of scientists who are assessing the impacts of global change on kelp forests.  Kelp forests are an important ecosystem because they provide a complex habitat that supports a high diversity of marine organisms.  Through KEEN, scientists across the world are using a standardized sampling protocol to observe kelp forests over time and understand how resistant they are with rapidly changing oceanic conditions.

In late July, Bailey, Cait and I traveled down to Pemaquid Point where we worked with a team from Northeastern University to learn how to conduct the KEEN sampling protocols.  Each KEEN site requires that data be taken from four separate 40 meter transects.  There are five different protocols that have to be conducted on every transect so there was a lot for us to learn!  From the five different protocols, data is collected about the kelp species that are present along with the fish, algal, invertebrate and vertebrate species that are found along the transect.  The KEEN protocols require a lot of species identification so brushing up on our ID’s especially for species that were present at Pemaquid but not on Hurricane Island was beneficial.  It was also helpful to hear from the Northeastern divers who were familiar with these protocols and get their suggestions and advice for the most efficient way to conduct the dives.

Our site on Hurricane Island is the most northern site on the eastern coast of the United States.  One of the biggest challenges involved with the KEEN protocols is site selection.  Before laying out our transects, Bailey and I dove twice on Hurricane Island to find kelp habitat at a suitable depth.  Much of our kelp is shallower than the 8-12 meter depth range required for the KEEN sites but we eventually found a good site off the north end of the island.  So far we have completed two of the four transects needed for the site.  With each transect the protocols have become easier and our dives quicker.  Since these dives are shallow (~25 feet), we can stay underwater for much longer than we can on our deeper scallop dives.  On our second transect, our dive lasted 74 minutes, which was the longest dive I had ever completed.  In addition to completing the remaining transects, we also have to install temperature loggers at the site to collect temperature data throughout the year.  We have two more transects left that and I am looking forward to finishing those this week before I leave the island for the summer.

Becoming a part of KEEN this summer has been a great opportunity to contribute to this global network of kelp studies. As this is the first season for our site on Hurricane Island, this year’s data will be used as a baseline for any changes we see in the future. 

On the coast of the North side of Hurricane Island, snuggled between two small white buoys is a kelp aquaculture site. Amongst the waves there is one long submerged line that the students at Deer Isle-Stonington High School seeded with kelp spores last fall. Sugar Kelp, Saccharina latissima, is naturally found in cold Northeastern American waters. In the wild, they need a rocky substrate or coastline to attach their holdfast to.

Ocean aquaculture may become a solution to the degradation our agricultural systems have been facing over the last century. Large-scale food operations with big monocrops, such as corn and soybeans, result in soils that are very susceptible to issues of erosion and nutrient deprivation. When large areas have these issues they become more difficult to work with, and need far more chemical fertilizers, machinery, and water pumped to them, which causes waste and more dependence on local and outsourced aquifers. A driving issue that started the problems in our current food systems is that they are disconnected from the natural environments and seasonal patterns that the individual foods originated from.

Many naturalists have suggested over the years that one possible solution to this disconnect is to simply begin with a local food movement. Putting the foods that grow seasonally in an area into one’s grocery cart can create a powerful community. Building up this community atmosphere fosters a self-sustaining motive, thus keeping the income for local businesses sustainable and maintaining healthy local farm and land practices.

Kelp has been diversifying the portfolios of Maine fishermen and lobstermen during their off-season because it is a crop that grows best in wintertime (once it is established, sugar kelp grows 5-7 centimeters per day as it continues to pump out its spindly blades!) and can be harvested early March through to the early fall season. Researchers at NOAA in conjunction with researchers at Universities and other Institutes have begun to study if the process of photosynthesis in kelp may be a potential aid to issues of ocean acidification. The kelp takes in CO2 from the water, and replaces it with oxygen—much like plants and trees do for our air. If the research studies continue to be positive, and we implement more aquaculture off of our coastlines, we could begin to mediate some of the pollution that is going into our ocean systems. This concept is currently being investigated at Oceans Approved, an aquaculture site in Southern Maine, where they hope to use kelp to locally decrease CO2 around shellfish aquaculture sites.  Paul Dobbins of Oceans Approved was the one who graciously came out to help us find the site for our own kelp farm last summer!

Not only is kelp aquaculture good for our coast, and for local economic sustainability, kelp can greatly improve one’s health! This nutrient rich macro alga contains iodine, potassium, calcium, protein, and Omega-3 fatty acids—similar to those found in fish.

Once all of the little microorganism grazers and biofoulers are removed from the blades, kelp is ready to be cooked into many fun and tasty dishes! A few personal favorites I enjoy are: seaweed salad (which is a favorite in many Americanized Asian restaurants), miso soup, super food kale and seaweed salad, as a side dish to fresh caught fish, and a Hurricane Island favorite (even tested by the pickiest of middle schoolers)—chocolate seaweed pudding!

Our educators and researchers make kelp harvesting accessible to our student programs, by first educating them on the process of setting up a kelp aquaculture site and the benefits of kelp while in a lab setting. Armed with this background knowledge, students can then cruise over in one of our boats and harvest the kelp themselves. Teaching the next generation of thinkers why sustainable food systems matter, will someday create a world where they matter in the public eye. Here at Hurricane Island we will continue to promote healthy oceans, and healthy people by growing our aquaculture one spindly frond at a time.

As an early start to our Fourth of July celebrations on the island the Scallop Research Team headed out on Sunday for our first dive day of the season.  Sometimes dive days can be hard to plan because of uncertainties in the weather, wind, and swell, so it was exciting that yesterday’s dives went through.  Additionally, because of the collaborative nature of this project, local lobstermen take us out on their boats so dive days have to be coordinated around their schedules.  Being out with the lobstermen is a great way to connect the science side of the project to the people it is actually impacting.  They also have such a wealth of knowledge about the area and ocean, which is extremely beneficial.  Plus, Dan was a great DJ!

Our day started bright and early as we met Dan, the lobsterman who we went out with, at 7am at the dock.  Because diving in general requires a lot of gear, plus all of our research equipment, loading the car to haul all the gear to the dock required a 5:30 am wake up.  Luckily, it was beautiful morning and we were all excited to get in the water so the early morning was not an issue. 

This was my first research experience underwater.  Compared to a purely recreational dive, there are many more things that are necessary to think about.  In addition to everything you have to pay attention to during a normal fun dive, on our scallop dives we also have to be aware of collecting scallops, staying on track with our transect, taking note of substrate types and other organisms we see, all while maintaining buoyancy with an ever increasing bag of scallops dragging us down and paying attention to how much air we have left.  Especially when the tides are running, staying parallel to the transect can be quite the challenge.  To record our data underwater we write on waterproof paper that is taped onto a PVC pipe around our arms. I never thought my handwriting could look worse than it normally does but then I put on 5mm dive gloves and realized how wrong I was.

We were lucky to have a great tide day and for three of our four dives the currents were not that strong.  One of the sites the currents caused us to be swimming perpendicular to the direction of the transect which made that dive a little more challenging than the others.  Almost more importantly, we had great visibility, which was a huge relief because at times the visibility can be so poor you have to call off the dive. 

Once we get back aboard the boat our work continued to process all the scallop shells.  This involves taking a tissue sample for genetic testing and collecting the shells so we can measure growth rates once back in our ‘lab’ on the docks of Hurricane Island.  This usually takes up most of our surface interval time but it is long enough to warm up from the frigid Maine waters before we jump back in and do it all over again.  It was a great first day and I’m excited for the many more that are to come!